Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) -- The $14.5 billion project after
Hurricane Katrina to improve New Orleans levees passed Isaac’s
test, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said.

Now, state and federal officials should expand the system
to protect low-lying areas throughout Louisiana, Governor Bobby
Jindal said.

“Protecting Louisiana’s coast is good for the people of
Louisiana; it’s also good for the country,” Jindal, a 41-year-old Republican, said during a news conference yesterday. “If
the proper flood-protection systems are built, we can protect
our people and our communities.”

Jindal, who has criticized Barack Obama for excessive
spending, used the occasion of the storm to press for federal
money for his state. Before Isaac hit, he said the Democratic
president wasn’t providing enough funding to cover the costs of
storm response. The governor wrote Obama a letter saying the
storm requires “full federal assistance for the state.”

Levees are crucial public works in south Louisiana, where
the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico.

After Katrina flooded New Orleans and killed 1,800 people
in 2005, the corps found that the system of barriers was
inadequate. Lieutenant General Carl Strock, chief engineer of
the corps in 2006, told the New York Times that the corps
“missed something in the design.”

Higher Walls

The corps undertook a $14.5 billion project to raise and
strengthen levees. The greater New Orleans area now has about
350 miles of levees and floodwalls, including outer and inner
barriers, according to a June 2012 corps fact sheet.

With the exception of some flood gauges that didn’t work,
the system operated as designed during Isaac, Rachel Rodi, a
corps in New Orleans, said in a telephone interview.

New Orleans Mayor Mitchell J. Landrieu said levees and
flood gates held, and pumping stations “did their jobs.”
Jindal also said he was satisfied.

“It does certainly appear, from everything we know, that
those levees passed that test,” he said.

There was flooding outside the system, including in
Plaquemines Parish, a region of 25,000 people southeast of New
Orleans where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico.
Dozens of people were rescued from rooftops by boat after water
spilled over a local levee and flooded their with as much as 12
feet of water.

Aloft Again

U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat, said she
argued with the corps after Katrina that areas such as
Plaquemines should be included in the federal levee system.

“We argued and argued and argued, and now you can see the
result,” Landrieu told WWL-TV in New Orleans on Aug. 29. “It’s
heartbreaking to watch people have to climb up into their attics
on their roofs.”

While there probably will be discussion about a levee
expansion in the wake of Isaac, there’s no estimate of the
potential cost, Rodi said.

“At the end of the day, what the corps has to do is what
we are authorized and funded to do,” Rodi said.